Pensioners
living in Spain even though receiving UK
pensions are entitled to free
health care under the European
Union reciprocal healthcare policy
but need to be registered to obtain this.
It will give them free prescriptions and
access to both urgent and non urgent
health care. Application must be made at
the local INSALUD
office to which you need to take the original
and a copy of your passport and something
that shows the address
where you are living. You will then be issued
with a provisional
social security number.

Proposed
changes to the law for pensioners

It is becoming
increasingly common for British
State pensioners to divide their
time between the UK
and some other EU
country.

Under European
law,
the health care costs of such an individual
remain the responsibility of the member
state paying the pension
(unless the pensioner receives a pension
from both countries in which case the country
of residence
is responsible). In many EU
countries,
the pensioner
may choose to register as resident in that
member state, in which case they can receive
treatment in that country and the UK
government
pays an agreed sum annually to the member
state to fulfil its obligation to fund that
treatment. While they are in the UK,
they are entitled only to treatment
that arose during their stay. Registration
as resident is not compulsory,
and indeed in some
EU countries
is not an option.

However, many
pensioners
who could register as resident choose not
to do so, because they do not consider themselves
as resident in the other member state, but
as UK residents
merely on an extended visit to the other
member state.
Consequently, they have to pay for any treatment
they receive abroad and many choose instead
to return to the UK
for regular treatment.
The problem here is that these unregistered
pensioners often fall foul of the
charging rules
because of the way the twelve-month residency
exemption is calculated. The
Regulations stipulate that only absences
of up to three months can be disregarded
when calculating whether someone has been
living in the UK
for more than twelve months prior to the
treatment
commencing. As a result pensioners who have
been living in another EU
member state for more than three months
find that they return ‘home’
for treatment only to be told that they
have to pay because they are not ordinarily
resident
and do not meet any of the exemption criteria.
This is clearly unfair when, under EU
rules, the UK
should be funding treatment.
In the light of this the British
government is proposing to introduce
a new regulation that provides specific
exemption from charges for
NHS hospital treatment to anyone
who:

1.
is in receipt of a specified
British state pension; and,2.
is living in the UK
for not less than six months and in another
EU member
state for not more than six
months per year; and, 3.
is not registered
as resident in another EU
member state.